Broncos get road win at Edmond North

Mustang needed a win. After losing three-straight games by large deficits, the future was not looking great in terms of making the postseason.

With that as the backdrop, the Broncos traveled to Edmond last week and defeated Edmond North 41-29. The win gave Mustang its first district victory of the season.

“It’s all about our kids responding. They were in a tough spot,” Mustang coach Jeremy Dombek said. “We challenged them up offensively and defensively and it was a tough game.”

In the first half the Broncos and Huskies went back and forth. But it was Mustang who trailed 14-13 at halftime.

It was a perfect opportunity for Mustang (3-3, 1-2) to fall apart and start thinking about how their last three games had ended.

But the Broncos made a stand.

“They could’ve taken the downhill slide like we have in the past but they didn’t,” Dombek said. “Made huge plays, defense made a huge play in the third quarter with the interception that got us down to the one yard line. That set up the offense and I think we scored three unanswered there in the third quarter. It’s just good to get back on the winning track.”

Quarterback Brayden Garrett gives a lot of the credit to the second half surge to tailback Carlos Thomas and the offensive line.

“Well our original game plan coming out of half was to throw the ball a little bit more,” Garrett said. “But then Carlos started making a couple big running plays and so we just stuck with that and it worked.”

Just as important was the Broncos defense. After allowing a total of 170 points in the three previous weeks, they held Edmond North to 15 points in the second half.

“Well we always talk about maturity and it’s hard,” Dombek said. “I think Coach (Adam) Gaylor and I were talking about it during the course of the game. We look out there at one time we’ve got seven sophomores on the defense and I don’t think there’s any school in the state that will say that. They’re talented and we like them and we know they’re going to be good. But just the other things that are involved in the game as far as what you’re talking about are climbing out of a hole and mental maturity. They did it. They accepted the challenge at half time.”

Mustang returns back home Friday when they host Moore High. The Lions are coming off a 70-0 defeat to No. 1 Union.

But before that, they had won three straight. The Mustang coaching staff knows they can dangerous.

“They have an outstanding quarterback that causes a lot of problems. I mean he’s a tremendous talent and makes plays all over the place. He’s tough, he’s physical, he’s a winner,” Dombek said. “So it’s a huge challenge for our defense. From an offensive perspective, they play hard, they play fast and they tackle well. They have for the last couple years. They’re an improved team. It’s not the same Moore that you played about three or four years ago.”

Mustang has four games left in the regular season. According to Dombek, this is normally the time his teams produce their best football.

“If you just kind of look at what we’ve done in the past we’ve seemed to always be playing our best football the latter half of the season. That’s what we always preach,” Dombek said. “We don’t want to be our best in August or September. We want to play our best in October and November. If we can do that, and get ourselves just a chance to get in the playoffs and have, what we call a puncher’s chance, to make some noise. Then I think we can look back on it and say that it was a successful year. That’s the standard around here. We don’t want to make the playoffs, we expect to make the playoffs and make some noise once we get there. So we’ll see. It’s only Week Seven.”